


the rib is the shell and the heart is the yolk

by audenrain



Series: you like to captain a capsized ship [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crying, D/s, Dirty Talk, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 00:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5846002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audenrain/pseuds/audenrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander frowned. “Well, it hurt. But it was good. I didn’t say ‘Jefferson’,” he added, and John couldn’t help but bury his face in his hands again. They should have had this conversation days ago, weeks ago, ever since he first started reading up on the topic.</p><p>“That’s another thing,” he said when he emerged. “That’s not – we’ve gotta change that.”</p><p>[In which the boys finally have a very important talk, and the fun stuff comes a little later.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **trigger warning time!** so I always meant for the beginning of their relationship in this ‘verse to seem a little dicey – like, they really should’ve talked it through first – and I hope that was somewhat evident even before now. but they’re finally going to talk about it for real!
> 
> what I’m getting at here is that while there is no actual non-consensual activity here, there is some worry on John’s side that there may have been, and there is a good amount of worry about underutilizing safewords, and all the general emotional turmoil that goes along with these ideas.
> 
> timeline-wise, this takes place before [falling for your tendencies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5740321).
> 
> (and yes, i'll say it now, upfront: the fun parts of the tags won't be coming up until the second chapter.)
> 
> the title is from Fiona Apple's "Every Single Night", which always makes me think of Alexander.
> 
> endless amounts of gratitude to Melanie and [laaurens](http://laaurens.tumblr.com), who both looked it over for me, and to Melanie for listening to me brainstorming this for probably literally hours on end. patience of a saint, that one, and invaluable feedback to boot.

 

                                                                                      

It was a sign of Alexander’s truly impressive ability to speak volumes with his expression that he could, with only a quarter of his face visible, demonstrate such deep skepticism. The rest of his face was pressed into the mattress, just one eye peeking above the folded arm that framed his head.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, a little muffled. The words were probably harsher than he meant them to be, but it still made John bristle. “John, you didn’t even come, c’mere, get back inside me—”

“I’m not really—” John took a deep breath, finding a pair of sweatpants on the floor and pulling them on carefully. His dick was being slow to get the message, but the rest of him was in agreement. The mood was pretty much killed. His chest hurt, the way it did whenever he saw Alexander get punched in the face, except this time—

He dragged his hands over his face like he could scrub out the feeling.

“Oh.” Through the cracks between his fingers, John could see Alexander leaning up on his elbows, the look in his face fading into worry. “Wait, what just happened?”

John took a few steps back and sank into the desk chair. He wanted to curl up, shrink down; he had to settle for bringing one foot onto the chair and tucked the knee to his chest, hugging his shin like a kid. At some level he knew this could have been avoided if he’d just done the research sooner, thought about it more, planned ahead, tried to have a real grown-up conversation about it, but he’d never _been_ a planner or a talker, and how was it fair that he’d shoved into the role by proxy just because Alexander was a hair’s breadth worse?

“Okay, now you’re just staring at the floor and you look angry and I don’t understand what I did to—”

“No,” John got out, forcing himself to meet Alexander’s eyes, which were wide and soft and utterly baffled. “I’m not angry. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just—”

Alexander sat up all the way now, wincing a little, and that sent a wave of nausea through John’s body, even though there had been times when that had been hot – Alexander murmuring coyly that he could hardly sit down after the night before – god, he couldn’t think about it now. There were red patches on Alexander’s shoulders and elbows where they had been rubbing against the mattress, and a little dot of red on Alexander’s lip where one of them had bitten it too hard. Everything he might have otherwise found sexy suddenly felt monstrous.

“You said ‘no’,” John finally managed, not letting himself look away. “And—”

And _I – I can’t_ , stammered out like a plea for mercy – he could still hear the pitch and quiver of Alexander’s voice.

Alexander frowned. “Well, it hurt. But it was good. I didn’t say ‘Jefferson’,” he added, and John couldn’t help but bury his face in his hands again. They should have had this conversation days ago, weeks ago, ever since he first started reading up on the topic.

“That’s another thing,” he said when he emerged. “That’s not – we’ve gotta change that.”

“Why?” Alexander narrowed his eyes. “You were right, I’m definitely never calling _that_ out by accident—”

“Yeah, but it’s _funny_. Your safeword shouldn’t be a joke, and… That isn’t even my point. Do you mind covering up?”

Because Alexander was sitting there on the bed, leaning against the wall with his knees bent and his legs slightly spread, totally unconcerned with his nudity, and John usually liked that shamelessness, but…

Alexander blinked at him, something flickering in his eyes before they shuttered off and he pulled the topsheet over his lap with a sharp flourish. “Better?”

“Yes.” John pushed a hand through his hair, cringing as it caught on sweat and tangles. His scalp itched. It was going to sound trite, he was grimacing just in anticipation, but he had to ask. “Did I hurt your feelings?”

“No,” Alexander said, too quickly and with too much indignation. And if _that_ didn’t just confirm all of John’s worries—

(Alexander, who wanted so much to make others proud, who was forever convinced that disappointing someone he loved could only mean abandonment, who was always boasting of how much he could take – how much would he force himself to suffer through, just for praise, or to please John, or for the sake of his own damned pride? If he couldn’t even admit to the flash of hurt John had very clearly caught, there, would he ever use his safeword? Would he tell himself that just having the option was enough, that John would never _mean_ to hurt him, that—)

—and then, after a pause that was _painfully_ long, after gritting his teeth and casting a furtive glance down at the floor, in a tone of deep reluctance, Alexander added, “Which time?”

John swallowed. “Any time,” he settled on, rewinding in his mind’s eye, trying to find where else he’d fucked up. Why did Alexander ever trust him with these things, if this was how well he could read the situation?

Alexander was picking at the skin on the side of his thumbnail, his gaze intent on his hands. “I don’t love it when you fuck me and immediately stop touching me,” he admitted, sounding a little sullen.

“Oh.” It had mostly been panic that pushed John out of the bed entirely and across the room, panic and guilt – even after he’d realized that Alexander was all right, he’d felt like he needed to keep giving him space. Stupid. He should know better by now. “Should I come back over?”

Alexander looked up, his face blank. “Don’t tax yourself,” he said, his tone brittle, and John sighed and pushed himself out of the chair.

“Don’t be an ass,” he said, settling back against the headboard. He tugged the sheet over his own lap too so he could tangle his legs with Alexander’s beneath it. “I’m freaked out too, okay?”

“But _why?_ ” Alexander took a breath, obviously trying to push away the frustration that was creeping into his voice. “I’m fine. That was going awesome. We have a safeword and I didn’t use it. I thought that was the whole point of safewords, to be able to say stuff you usually can’t.”

“But _would_ you? Use it?”

(Alexander, sighing happily under John’s hands, sated and soaking up praise like sunlight, and that had been such a good memory until he started thinking harder about it—)

“Sure.” His voice was all wrong though, impatient, almost dismissive.

And if John was honest, what he wanted to do more than anything right now was get up and leave – pull on the first shirt he found and get the fuck out of this tiny dorm room, with its stained threadbare carpet, where the air still smelled of musk and sex. He wanted to get outside where he could _breathe,_  maybe go find Mulligan and Lafayette and see if they felt like finding a fight. He wanted to tear up the skin on his knuckles, give pain and get some in return and not feel shitty about either half of that. Because the only thing worse than feeling sick with guilt was being told that you were being dumb about it, and the way Alexander looked at him—

He could also picture, quite clearly, what it would do to Alexander to be left like this, in this moment. So he took a breath.

“It’s scary,” he said. “I love what we do, but it’s scary for me, too, because you’re putting a lot of trust in me – you let me hurt you, and I don’t like to see you hurt but I _do_ like to see you happy. And sometimes hurting you makes you happy.” Christ, he sounds like an idiot, but making it as simple as he can is the only way he can get it all out. And Alexander is paying attention, schooling his face into a mostly neutral expression and _trying_ to get it, so he soldiers on.

“I know you like to see me happy, too, and you like when I tell you you’ve been good, or that you’re—” He fumbled with his words a little, not wanting to get too obscene. “That you’re taking it well. It’s scary to think you might not use your safeword, because you don’t want to stop being touched entirely. Like, if something hurt too much, or you just didn’t like it, you might suffer through it to get to the next part, or because you think you’ll disappoint me, or…”

He heaved a sigh, told himself to stop covering his goddamn face, and risked a glance at Alexander, who was sitting, silent, head tipped back against the wall and eyes straight ahead.

“Sorry,” Alexander said, softly. His jaw worked restlessly, like he was chewing on the inside of his cheek or the tip of his tongue – he had a habit of that, and he could make himself bleed sometimes with it – and on reflex John’s hand lifted from the sheets to touch his cheek in silent reprimand.

He dropped it. It wasn’t the time to be doing any bossing around, even the normal kind. Alexander glanced over at the motion, but he didn’t comment.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” Alexander went on. “Because it’s probably the least stressed I ever get, when you’re touching me and telling me how you want things and I get to just be in the moment with you, and I don’t have to worry. So I forgot it’s not the same on your end.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I shouldn’t have started things the way I did, I should’ve done more research and talked to you—”

Alexander made a noise, a kind of half-growl, half-laugh, and suddenly he was right in John’s face, pressing their foreheads together, soft at first and then just on the edge of pain. “Okay,” he said, pulling back enough to meet John’s eyes. “No more self-flagellation.”

“Yeah.” He had plenty more in him, but he knew Alexander would have no patience for it. Alexander was all about problem-solving. He could do that. “Have you heard of the stoplight system?”

Alexander sat back a little farther, giving John a _look,_ his eyebrows raised and his eyes flat. “I have seen stoplights,” he said, “so I can infer. Green means go…”

“Yellow can be slow down,” John agreed. “Or it can be, you know, we think of it like a pause button. You say yellow and we stop for a minute, you talk to me, and until you say green again, I take anything you say absolutely seriously. We can change pace, or… tracks, or whatever.”

Alexander nodded slowly. “And red is stop.”

“Red is…” John scrunched his nose up, hating to say it, but— “Jefferson protocol. Everything stops, I get off you and give you plenty of space.”

Alexander nodded again. He was silent for a long moment. “You needed space earlier,” he said, a sudden realization.

“Well… yeah. Maybe. A little.”

His brow was knitting, now, his whole face souring. “And I bullied you into coming back.”

“You didn’t _bully_ me. I thought we weren’t doing self-flagellation?”

Alexander was gnawing at the inside of his mouth again. This time John reached out, cupped his hands around Alexander’s cheeks, stroked the circles beneath Alexander’s eyes. “ _Stop_ that,” he said, unable to help himself.

Alexander’s jaw relaxed a little. It took a moment, but eventually his eyes flickered up to John’s again. “For the record,” he said. “I would’ve said green tonight. If we’d had this system, if you’d checked in. I was very… green.”

“Okay.” John felt a little breathless suddenly – not with arousal and – thank god – no longer with fear – just breathless, because Alexander was looking right into his eyes, steady as anything, trying to reassure John the best he could. “How about a hug? Green?”

“Green,” Alexander agreed, and leaned in to wrap his body around John’s, leg over hip, arms round his middle, face tucked into his neck. John took a deep breath and felt it echoed in a warm gust of air across his collarbone.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and got a sharp pinch to his side for it.

“Shut up,” Alexander said. “We’re gonna be fine.”

  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting without an editor this time... have patience and let me know if I missed any errors.

“Done for the night?” John asked, when he heard the telltale thud of a textbook hitting the floor. It was loud enough to be startling, actually – John had been kind of in the zone – but whatever. It was good to see Alexander giving himself breaks.

“Mhm,” said Alexander, and there was a definite note of invitation in the sound. John smiled down at his notes. His own studying was easily abandoned; it was superfluous, just a quiz the next morning that he already felt confident about. When he turned to look, Alexander was already watching him, stretched out on his bed, lying on his side and wearing a look of heavy-lidded anticipation. “Would you…”

Then he stopped, a flash of uncertainty crossing his face. That wasn’t anything new; Alexander did find it hard to ask for what he wanted, would usually rather take what he was given and find pleasure in giving it to John.

“What do you want, baby girl?”

Because that was the trick, John had found, to getting Alexander to talk about it with ease – remind him what he’d get if he did; remind him that John had never laughed or balked at anything yet; remind him of how many times he’d muttered out a fantasy and had it returned in Technicolor and surround sound.

Alexander sighed and rolled over onto his back, looking upwards instead of at John, now. “That night,” he said, and just from the tone and the look on his face John knew exactly what night he meant, just a couple weeks ago, but Alexander went on. “When we had that long talk, because things… freaked you out.”

“Uh-huh,”  John prompted, when nothing more was said.

“If I wanted to try that again. Would it be too much?”

John thought back. Plenty had been done that night. He couldn’t even really think of anything that had been out of the ordinary for them. He’d sucked Alexander off while he stretched him, brought him to the brink and then fucked him till he came into John’s hand, and kept fucking him because he’d reached back and gripped John’s hip and had seemed very content, until he'd started moaning _I can't, I can't_ , and it had all gone downhill from there. “Which part?”

Alexander let out a huff through his nose. “I'd come, and you were still fucking me, and I was... Raw. Everything was a little too much. But it was good. Bright. Sharp. Like fucking in HD.”

John nodded. Alexander was looking over at him again, and his eyes were dark and deep enough to drown in. His body could not have been more open if he tried – legs spread, one knee bent, hands up on the pillow by his head. And who was John to refuse that invitation?

He took his time a little, capping his pen, making sure it stood straight and tidy in the mesh cup that held all their other pens, marking his place in his notebook and textbook, stacking everything neatly. Alexander was surprisingly patient. He didn’t make a sound. There was, maybe, a hint of reproach in his gaze when John turned back to him; but he’d teased John enough times. Turnabout was fair play.

John pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his jeans before joining Alexander. The thing about the narrow bed was it could be a pain when they wanted to sleep together and still have a little breathing room, but it worked quite well when Alexander was in the mood to be overwhelmed. There wasn’t enough room for the both of them to lie flat unless one was on top of the other. John watched Alexander strain without straining – he wanted to be kissed, but he was letting John draw it out, even though everything in his face begged for it. His head was tilted to one side, waiting for John to mirror him, his lips were parted, and he was staring, unabashedly, at John’s mouth.

When John finally kissed him, he sighed, and his mouth fell open almost immediately; he was lifting his chin more and more, trying to get closer without raising his head from the pillow. Lying like this, John boxed him in, elbows on either side of his head, and for all that he was propping himself up, he knew he was resting a considerable amount of weight on Alexander too. He knew because Alexander was rolling his hips up against him - and god, he was already hard - wriggling just for the sake of feeling how thoroughly he was pinned, and then moaning into John’s mouth. His tongue kept brushing the tip of John’s and the inside of his lip, trying to entice him into following, chasing. It was a beautifully yielding way to kiss.

John broke away with one last little bite to Alexander’s upper lip, smiling as he watched Alexander’s head lift for a split second to follow him and then drop back down. There was a hazy, hungry look on his face, but he didn’t protest.

Of course, that only made John feel like giving in – he was being so good – but that wasn’t the _point._ And it wasn’t what Alexander wanted, either. He slid down, following the lines of the tendons with his teeth, exploring the spread of the collarbone, mapping out the hollows there with his tongue till Alexander squirmed. He hit fabric, then, and sat up to push it up from the hem. Alexander didn’t move to help him, just blinked up at him, indolent, waiting to be told.

“Lean up,” John said, and he did. “Arms.” Alexander raised his arms until the shirt was off, and then followed the pressure of John’s hand on his chest back down to the bed. “Hips,” he said, and Alexander looked down his body as he obeyed, to watch John carefully lift the elastic of his sweatpants over his cock and then wrap a hand around it and jerk once, twice, firmly. Alexander made a sound deep in his throat, and then another one higher up when John let go to finish pulling off the sweatpants.

“You were so good,” John told him – it was belated, but he’d been distracted before, both by the thought of what was ahead and by the look in Alexander’s eyes. “Telling me what you wanted. You were perfect.”

Alexander wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, but he bucked up a little more as John spread out on top of him again, and the words made his cock twitch, so John kissed his earlobe, nosed into his hair a little, and kept going. “My good girl,” he said, soft and crooning, and Alexander gave a full-body shudder.

The lube was already out on top of the bedside table when John reached over, expecting to have to dig for it. It made him blink, but he didn’t think much of it. Alexander was tracing patterns with the fingertips one hand, maddeningly light, over the bare skin of John’s ribs. What mattered was warming the lube between his hands, getting his fingers slick and getting Alexander boneless and wanting.

"I don't need it," Alexander said, tilting his hips up a little, bending his knees. John frowned at him, stroking his dry hand up the length of Alexander's thigh, stopping just shy of Alexander's cock.

"I'm not fucking you without getting you ready," he said, incredulous, but Alexander just smirked at him. He landed a kiss on the inside of one knee and looked down, pressing a fingertip to Alexander's entrance - which, he found, was already shining with lube. "Alexander?"

"You were  _very_ focused for a while there," Alexander said. He was making tiny motions with his hips, trying to press himself onto John's finger, until John put the other hand on his lower belly, a silent command. Alexander huffed. "I kept thinking you'd hear me and stop..."

John remembered the too-loud thud of the book, picturing Alexander staring at his back as he dropped it with intent, and nearly laughed - except that the far more interesting image was Alexander lying behind him: legs spread, hand down his sweats, working himself open, arching up into the air and searching for the solid weight of John above him-

"God," John muttered, resting his temple against Alexander's knee for a moment. "Oh my god, baby."

Alexander was lying still as directed, but his stomach was tense underneath John's palm.

John pushed a finger in anyway, and Alexander let out a soft  _oh_ and tipped his head back, his eyes closing. "I kind of love this part though," John admitted. He wrapped an arm around Alexander's bent leg, his hand curling around to run slow lines up and down Alexander's inner thigh. The skin jumped under his fingers. 

"Oh," Alexander said again, although John doubted this came as a surprise. Without John's hand on his belly, he was, every now and then, rocking his hips in silent encouragement; then he would catch himself, bite his lip, still himself.

"You're so pretty like this." John added a finger, and it was only a bit of a stretch; there wasn't a hint of discomfort in Alexander's face. "I hate to think I missed it before."

Alexander shrugged, smiling faintly. "I was watching you the whole time. That t-shirt's too small for you. Your shoulders in it..."

John curled his fingers and Alexander cut off with a whimper. "Another?" he asked, pressing a third finger alongside the others.

"Or your cock," Alexander replied, raising his arms over his head to stretch, like he was _bored._

 _"_ That's not what I asked."

Alexander looked at him, and John could see the insolence in his eyes melting into submission. "Yes," he said, and then, when John only waited, he added with narrow eyes - " _please_."

He writhed so beautifully that John couldn't bring himself to stop, even when Alexander was ready by every definition of the word - instead he finally allowed Alexander's cock some attention, pouring some of the lube on his clean hand and stroking firm and slow, drawing his thumb across the tip. Alexander didn't rush him, but he was biting at his lip and scrunching up his face a little as he tried not to buck up. John rewarded him, going a little harder and a good deal faster.

"Good," John told him, twisting on the upstroke now, "that's it, that's perfect, babydoll-"

Alexander came all over his stomach with a choked gasp, taking John - and it seemed himself - by surprise. His lips were parted, eyes wide and glassy.

John stroked him through it just a little too long, watching for the little wince he knew was coming and then pulling twice more before he let go. Alexander groaned.

"Fuck me?" he said, breathless. John's fingers had stilled at his entrance, but he pushed in and curled them again, dragging them over Alexander's prostate and pulling out another groan. "Don't stop."

"Okay." John bit at the soft skin of Alexander's inner thigh, held Alexander's gaze. "Babydoll."

Alexander's body seized around the fingers inside of him; with his next moan, his eyes rolled back into his head.

 

 

 

By the time John nudged him over onto his hands and knees, he was sighing with every push and twist of John's fingers, but he was doing a much better job of keeping still.

"Good girl," John said, as Alexander arched his back and canted his hips. "You were so patient." Mostly. It was the effort that mattered, and Alexander always did try so hard for him.

It was incredible, how smoothly he slid into Alexander, whose head dropped down between his arms. "Fuck," he said, his hands tightening into fists in the pillow. "Fuck, oh fuck. Why do we ever do anything but this?"

John ran a palm down his spine. He was having trouble coming up with an argument against it. Alexander tightened around him, sudden and snug enough to push the air out of his lungs.

"Stay still," he gasped, when he could speak again. Alexander hadn't moved yet, but John could feel that some of the tension had come back to his limbs, some of the impatience John thought he'd worked out. He thrust forward and watched Alexander's hands twist in the pillow, but otherwise he held himself still. "I'm going to fuck you until I don't have to tell you that," he said, and Alexander clenched around him again. "Until you're so strung out on it you can't move, and you'll take whatever I give you-"

Alexander was whining, falling to rest on his elbows, now, the sound coming out through gritted teeth. He was hard again, leaking, and when John reached around to give him some relief, he nearly leapt in John's hand. "We'll get you there," John told him, running still-slick fingers over the curve of Alexander's ass, stroking Alexander's cock with intent.

This time when Alexander came, it was on John's name, a growl that came from deep in his chest, and the _n_ lingered, a plaintive sound that echoed the way his muscles trembled.

John knew the discomfort was starting to set in; Alexander was letting out a hiss every now and then, his shoulders tensing. But - like fucking in HD, he'd said, and he liked other kinds of pain, his hair being yanked and his skin bitten to bruising.

When John pulled out, it wasn't for Alexander's sake. "I'm gonna come," he said, a hand spread wide in the small of Alexander's back to keep contact. "Do you want-"

"Don't," Alexander pleaded, shaking his head against the pillow. "Don't come yet-"

So John filled him again with his fingers, pressing up inside him till he let out a noise that sounded almost like a sob. He waited until the edge was a little worn off, while Alexander sank lower and lower on his knees, till he was nearly flush with the bed. John didn't try and stop him. He was grinding against the bed, even though John couldn't imagine how he could be hard again - and maybe he wasn't, but he was whimpering with _something_.

John didn't bother pulling him back up. He draped himself over Alexander's back and slowly, carefully fucked into him, everything narrowing down to the heat and stickiness of their skin, the way Alexander's body held him close and he could feel its every twitch and shiver beneath him. 

Alexander was crying.

He realized it with a jolt, and stilled his hips, brushing the hair off Alexander's face, which was turned half into the pillow and half towards John. "Alexander. Colour?"

Alexander moaned before he answered, the most agonizing moment of John's life, but then he fumbled to reach up and touch John's hand where it was still, tentatively, resting on the hair at his temple. "Green," he whispered. "I'm - it's just so much-" 

 And if Alexander had been pretty before, in the shallows of pleasure when John had slowly stretched him open, he was beautiful now, drowning in sensation, his eyelashes glittering with tears, his mouth open in silent, helpless passion. He wasn't speaking at all, anymore; here and there he started a word and it broke off into a gasp, but eventually he gave up. His hands were clenched so tightly in the pillow that John suspected it might be forever misshapen, not that it mattered.

"You're gorgeous," he murmured, knowing that the tears didn't mean Alexander was unhappy and yet still feeling the need to reassure, to soothe. "You look so good like this, baby girl."

Alexander let out a true sob, then, sharp and startling; he shifted to press his face into the pillow, and John made a noise of protest. 

"Come out of there," he said, and Alexander hesitated. His shoulders shook. Something in the _way_ he finally turned made John pause, still sheathed inside his heat but stopping to touch a hand to Alexander's wrist. "Alexander?"

"Green," Alexander said, and he stuttered on the _g_ and quavered on the vowels, but he said it again. "Green."

John swallowed. "Don't hide your face," he said softly. "I like to see you."

Alexander nodded, pressing the side of his face to the pillow again, scrunching his eyes shut as John pushed in deeper - and then his whole face went slack as John angled his hips just right, another sob shuddering past his lips. There were fresh tears trailing across the bridge of his nose to dampen the pillow. For a while, he was quiet, so fucked out he seemed half in a dream, his mouth working but only letting out the sound of his ragged breaths.

John kissed the back of his neck, sweeping away sweat-damp hair and nipping at his shoulders. "I can't - I'm gonna come soon," he said, clenching his jaw, aware that his hips were moving faster, his body chasing release before he'd quite given it permission. Before Alexander had. 

"Yeah," Alexander said, his voice thick with tears. "Please, yes, in me, please-" He was still reaching back, farther now to dig his fingers into John's shoulder, pulling him closer, as if that was even possible.

John's vision blurred for a moment; Alexander was gripping him so tight, and he could hear, above Alexander's soft animal sobs, the sound of his own voice, the broken groan that was tearing at his chest and throat. He pressed his forehead to Alexander's neck, wondering if Alexander could feel the breakneck beat of his heart through his spine. 

"Fuck," Alexander whispered, which seemed about right. John took a deep breath and, with as much gentleness as he could muster considering the sudden weakness of his limbs, began to pull out and help Alexander over onto his back.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, wishing his voice was a little steadier. He felt like he was made of Jell-O. He could only imagine what Alexander was feeling.

Alexander nodded, his eyes sliding shut. It wasn't an answer, but he was groping up John's arm until he got a grip on a bicep, and pulling. "Just. Lie with me."

"Are you sure you-"

"Shhh." Alexander rolled his body a little, pushing a leg between John's, sighed. "Fizzy."

"What?"

Alexander burrowed deeper into him. They were going to dry like this, stuck together. "I feel sore, but mostly fizzy."

"Is that-"

"It's good. Just. Give me a minute."

"Yeah," John said, tightening his arms, trying not to wonder how they were going to make it to the showers without looking like the well-fucked disaster they were (because this was a mess beyond wet wipes). "As long as you need."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr as promache!


End file.
